Why People Stay: Using Job Embeddedness to Predict Voluntary Turnover.

A new construct, entitled job embeddedness, is introduced. Assessing factors from on and off the job, it includes an individual’s (a) links to other people, teams and groups, (b) perception of their fit with their job, organization and community and (c) what they say they would have to sacrifice if they left their job. A measure of job embeddedness is developed with two samples. The results show that job embeddedness predicts the key outcomes of both intent to leave and voluntary turnover, and explains significant incremental variance over and above job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job alternatives and job search. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. 3 The personal and organizational costs of leaving a job are often very high. It is not surprising, then, that employee retention has the attention of top-level managers in today’s organizations. The questions that challenge social scientists and practitioners alike are “Why do people leave? ” and “Why do they stay? ” Over the years, researchers have developed partial answers to these questions. More specifically, given alternatives, people stay if they are satisfied with their job and committed to their organization and leave if they aren’t. However, the